Sorry it's taken a while. Got a little stuck. Also must thank Ryxl for helping with some Johanna dialogue, and some of the knots. Essentially we RP dialogue back and forth.

Oh, yes, I made up the non-morphling drug name by combining the names of a couple of anti-psychotic medications (haloperidol and clorazipine). They're generally known for yucky side-effects like hallucinations, confusion, agitation and such like that which I figured would really, really kaibosh the work that they were actually trying to do with Peeta's recovery.

Is that someone walking? I'm vaguely awake but I don't look up at first because I want to assess.

"Peeta?" the query is nervous, but the voice is familiar, female. Safe. Internal monologue assures me. I'm safe. Thirteen. Safe? Prim. Safe, "What did you do?"

It must look strange to her. I'm not on the bed. I couldn't sleep. I tossed. I turned. The bed was uncomfortable. I took myself off it. I tried lying on the ground. I couldn't get comfortable there. I wound up threading my arms through the bars on the bed and sitting up. I finally fell asleep, facing the door in case someone came in. So, I would hear. So, I could prepare, or some part of me could, anyway, I suppose. In case it wasn't Prim, as promised; because it might all be wrong.

It might still be wrong.

Wrong.

I look up slowly.

It's Prim. It's Prim when I close my eyes and open them again. I un-thread my arms slowly. She kneels down by my side.

"What were you doing?" she asks, taking each arm in turn and inspecting them.

"I couldn't sleep."

She sits back on her heels looking thoughtful, "Well, let's get you some breakfast then. Do you want to wash up first? I can bring a little water in as well."

"Okay."

She stands up and goes to the door wheeling out the cart that's by it.

I pull myself up using the bed and walk around the room again. There's the window that's not a window. That's where they show the stupid videos. There's the walls and a couple of cabinets and drawers. I'm debating whether I should try to open the drawer when Prim comes back in with a little cart again, a small bowl of water, a small towel and a bowl of the porridge/gruel and a slice of something that's supposed to be bread.

Right. No spoons in this room.

Spoon. Ear.

I shudder.

"They say we might have a little bit of fruit soon, so it won't all be supplements. The greenhouse area is producing but also they should have the trains running if all goes well with Two," Prim says.

This is the first I've heard of anything going on outside the walls of the room, "With...Two?"

Prim gives a slight smile, "What do you remember of the Districts?" she asks, "I don't want to overload you with information."

"They—they would ask me about Seven a lot, and Eight—there was major trouble in Eight because of..." I feel my hands starting to tighten up and that redness crawling up my back, "Let's just not, right now," I decide, "I don't...I don't..." I pick up the towel and put it in the water and ring it out, "Trains and food are good."

"Yes," Prim says, hastily, "Yes, they are. Let's just say a lot of the Districts are working with us now against the Capitol and Two is where the fight is at right now. How's that?"

I mop my face and the back of my neck, "That—that's good. Best of luck to them. May the odds be in their favor." It's out before I really realize what I've said.

Prim laughs, "Good one. Eat your nutritious goop. I'll go see where Johanna is. She's officially in command of your care now. I've no idea what she said to Coin. I haven't seen her. I just got the message handed down to me from a very irritated Keller about an hour ago. "On the upside" he said "It'll save us on morphling and halozapine". He's not completely off things. He's says he's going to be reading our, Johanna's and my reports, and checking in bi-weekly. In the mean time, if you want tonight, when I come on shift again, I can check in and give you sleep syrup, much less side effects and much less you sleeping in that painful position?"

I feel myself getting embarrassed, "It's not painful..."

She gives me a look, "Just because you're used to that sort of pain..."

I'm not sure what...

"We'll revisit that before I go off shift to attend lessons," she says, "In the mean time eat. I have to go check where Johanna is, and I think we were going to move you one over so you can actually have a bathroom."

I've eaten, cleaned myself again and washed out the bowl by the time Prim returns. Johanna is with her. She has a bag over her shoulder and the smell of...it's firewood, lingers about her.

"Hey, Blondie," she says, "Ready to see your new digs?"

She and Prim take either arm and we walk a few paces down a faceless gray corridor under the stern and watchful eye of two guards one at each end and to a door with the number H-4 on it. I feel a beating in the back of my mouth at us being outside of the confines of the room, things might cave in on us. The H-4 door opens when Prim separates from us to put in her key card and she leads us inside. It's a similar room. Another window that is not a window and a bed, but this one has no straps, and has sheets and a pillow and a folded up blanket. There's a chair and a table and a cabinet lined up in front of the not window, and a small room to the left of us. Prim opens the door and shows the toilet, shower and sink.

"See," she says, "No more cloths. You can bathe like a real person."

"Are you sure?" I ask her, "I don't think I remember how."

They both look at me for a moment.

"Was—was that a joke, Blondie?" Johanna asks after a moment, hand on her heart, "Did—did you just make a joke?" She makes a show of falling towards the bed, "Prim! Prim! Check me! I think I've died!"

"I think you're fine," Prim rolls her eyes.

"I'm not fine," Johanna retorts, "I'm a fucking genius. We have more proof."

"Oh, geez," Prim says, "I'm going to leave now. You do whatever it is you're going to do."

Johanna waves at her as she closes the door, "Now you may have new digs but you're not able to leave them..." she says, sadly, "well, theoretically. You weren't supposed to be able to get out of the other one."

"I didn't," I point out, "I have no idea how that happened."

"Yes, well..." she puts the bag down on the bed, "I thought we might do something different today. No tapes, of course. No worries there. No visitors," she opens the bag, and pulls out something wrapped in cloth. The smell of fire wood becomes stronger and as she unwraps the cloth I see why. It's a bundle of charred sticks, about a dozen or so, thin.

I suppose YOU know how to light a fire, lover boy.

I do actually, give it here.

"What are those for?"

"They're for you," she says, "I thought we could draw today. There's a whole wall over here," she points to the blank wall in front of the bed, "or the floor over here," she points to the corner behind the cabinet against that wall and going towards the wall of the bathroom, "anywhere you like. No spare paper and no paint at all in Thirteen, I'm told and I haven't been able to raid your house yet," she pats me on the shoulder.

"Right," my brain is trying to grasp on to something, "but Twelve was destroyed. How can you raid my house?"

"They left Victor's Village intact," she explains, "Your house, Haymitch's house, Katniss' house, and the empty houses. I think the dear president was trying to make a point of some sort. Though the official reason was for Capitol people to stay at when they went to assess damages. I really don't think anyone's actually been out there."

I have a house? I try to conjure this up. With the whole bakery thing I had figured that's where I lived and it's destroyed along with the rest of the District. Johanna—she asked about something about picking things up yesterday, didn't she? I wasn't really following...things properly.

Still—surely I lived with the family at the bakery like Delly lived with her parents and...wait...brother, did she have a brother too? I should have asked her about him that would have been the polite thing to do, wouldn't it?

"You okay, Blondie?" Johanna asks.

"Yeah. I just—Delly. I think she has a brother, and her parents. I didn't ever ask about them I don't think."

"You've not been yourself," she says, "and there's a long way to go. She understands." She offers me the stick again, "come over here. Take a load off your feet and just draw—see what comes up."

"I don't know what," I take the stick anyway, "I would draw."

I follow her the few steps to the corner of the room. She has the bundle which she lays down next to her as she flops down. It feels like it should be more difficult for me to get down on the ground. I'm prepared for a protracted maneuver, bracing, moving carefully with my left leg, but as I start I realize that's not necessary. Things bend more easily than I thought.

"Alright?" she asks.

I nod, "My leg works differently to how I feel it should."

"It does look pretty sleek," she says.

I'm about to ask how, then I remember yesterday and what went on between her and...me, and the nakedness that entailed. I feel my cheeks heating up. My whole body even. She gets a strange smile.

"I told you it's okay."

"That's easy for you to say. I apparently have different ideas about these things."

"Which would be a thing I would be more accepting of you getting hung up on if you and I were the ones who had sex. We didn't."

"That's easy for you to say too."

Johanna sighs, "Look, if I grabbed your hand and started punching myself, would that be you doing it?"

What kind of?

"No?"

She nods, "Right, it would be me using your body to do it. So, the assassin using your body to do things is only different because it's inside you where it's harder to see," she puts a hand on my arm, "They hijacked you, split you somehow, it is not you and we are going to work on finding you again, okay?"

"Okay," I toy with the stick in my hand, looking at the floor.

"And if the assassin comes out, well, maybe I can get it to behave, this won't be the first time I've tamed something deadly."

I don't know if I want to ask what that's about or exactly what she's meaning either. She's leaning down on the floor resting on her forearms. I'm more just sitting.

"Got any ideas?" she asks.

"No."

She starts playing around with her stick, the charred end making black lines up and down, branching out. There's nothing I can think of to draw. Maybe that's it...thinking too much. It has to just flow. I close my eyes and breathe in. The scent of firewood brings up several different images all at once. A dark haired girl teasing me, but at the same time being mad that she can't light a fire. Groosling crackling. Crouching down to clean the ash out of the bottom of the bread oven before stacking the wood and kindling to start it again.

I lean over with the wood to start drawing but it doesn't feel like the right way to be doing this. I shift my position until it feels comfortable and wind up lying on my chest more like she's doing and start to work with the stick, but that's not right either.

"You alright?" Johanna asks.

"Just trying to get comfortable." It's not thick enough like the chalk, to be working with the pencil size is more comfortable sitting down with a pad rested on my knee. I can see myself doing that, landscape whisking by out of the windows, where is that? Train. Maybe just my fingers? I rub the charcoal onto my fingers and smear some onto the tile, that does feel slightly better. The charcoal isn't quite the same texture of material I feel I used, but the motion is right for this position. I realize that Johanna has stopped drawing herself and is watching me, "Are you alright?" I ask her.

"Sure," she says, "You just had this focus."

"Like I said, trying to get comfortable, remember how to do this..." I shake my head, "Does that make sense?"

"Perfectly."

"Good," because it doesn't quite to me. I push my fingers around on the floor a little. I feel like I'm just going to be making a nonsense mess. Smudges and then smears, things start to click though; more familiarity of movement. I suppose I should just go with it, allow the smudges and smears to keep forming, is that clouds? I add more charcoal to my fingers changing the layers on the clouds, and then shading beneath them slowly it stops being clouds and instead is hair around a forehead. Johanna shifts to my side instead of across from me, watching as I continue to smudge away and try to figure out exactly what I'm doing. It feels as though I'm just echoing something I've done before.

"That's something," she says, as the smudges give way to a face, "how you get the cheekbones like that. I can't draw worth a shit. How do you manage to do that?"

"I'm not sure...it's just shadows, and lines," I look over at her, "It just—it's light, and not light and I can just see her? I don't think I really knew her that much though...do you know her?"

Johanna shakes her head, "No," she says, "I know who she was, but I...don't know if it'll be good to talk about it or not."

"Keep it real. Wasn't that the whole thing?"

"I did come up with that, didn't I?" she leans back and then sits up more fully, "I'll say a few things and we'll move on, alright? I don't really want to gloss over things but I was hoping we could try and pull on happier things? I kinda hoped drawing would be a fun thing for you, something enjoyable that would help you feel more...normal."

"I don't think that's going to be possible."

"Give it time," she says, "Anyway. This girl is Rue. She was in the 74th games with you. You didn't really interact with her in the arena. With the way you are though I'm sure you knew her in the training center."

"She looks very sweet," I tell Johanna, "So, why do I feel like I was angry before when I drew her?"

Johanna sighs, "I'm really not the one who can give you accurate answers to those questions. I was mostly a spectator during 74 our tributes died on the first day. I know the circumstances of Rue's death made a lot of people very angry..." she sighs, again, "But I don't...that's probably going to get into a very big tangle of memories for you and there's no way I'm going to know enough to help you unknot it, and I don't think we've worked anywhere near long enough for you to get with the person who could, even if she was in the district..."

Realization.

"Yes," Johanna says, "Exactly."

"Lovely, because that's going to be a whole wellspring of truth."

"Well, this is why we're not going there," Johanna says, evenly, "Aside from the fact that she's not in the district right now."

"Surely there have to be other people here who know what happened? Other people from our district? I'm not going to trust anything she says—you have to know that."

Johanna puts a hand to her temple, "Blondie-" she starts and then stops, "who would you trust?"

"What about...our mentor? Are they still alive?"

Johanna hesitates, "He is. I just don't know that'll be much better. Let's just...hold off on that until after I come back from my field trip, okay?"

"Fine."